I decided to republish this post from a few year ago after hearing that EE Times had parted way with its editor-in-chief Dylan McGrath and the extraordinary journalist Rick Merritt who had been at the publication for nearly 20 years. For those of us in communications who toil in the semiconductor sector, it’s a downer. …more

By Alannah McDermott, Intern Imagine yourself sitting at a table, staring down at a pile of puzzle pieces. With determination and a hint of intimidation, you push aside the pile and place one small piece in front of you. This is where you’ll begin. As you reach for another piece, you notice it’s …more

We know the story is always there. Yet, bringing the story to the surface often requires the right questions. And no one is better at probing and cajoling a source than Terry Gross, the maestro of the NPR podcast “Fresh Air.” She recently interviewed the actor Patricia Arquette. Having done her homework, Gross knows Arquette’s …more

What would you do if a journalist called you out for lifting published content and repackaging it as part of a bylined article? The prudent first step would be investigating whether it’s true. When journalist Zack Whittaker accused Check Point of “borrowing” content from a WIRED article for a corporate byliner, Ekram Ahmed, head of …more

Our 2019 mantra “The story is always there” points to the importance of the discovery process in business communications. Anyone can sit down with Apple’s Tim Cook after Elizabeth Warren has made her case for greater regulation of the tech industry and come away with a story that triggers clicks. It takes much …more

Reporting on the storylines in a given Game of Thrones episode doesn’t require much creativity. Littlefinger overplays his hand and gets his due Daenerys Targaryen impersonates Abe Lincoln and frees the slaves The White Walkers were this close to taking over when the Night King makes a tactical error. Instead, the real storytelling comes through …more

While the communications world increasingly tilts toward digital, there are opportunities to play the contrarian card with an analog tactic. Executed right, the payoff can generate more than your fair share of attention. That’s what SHETRANSFORMS.US strove for last week. As background, SHETRANSFORMS.US advocates for taking the gender bias out of online search. The organization …more

This headline from Bloomberg showed up in my Twitter feed yesterday (h/t Dorothy Crenshaw): “Public Relations Jobs Boom as Buffett Sees Newspapers Dying” Let’s start with the headline, which is technically accurate. The PR industry is healthy, and newspapers aren’t. Yet, throwing in Warren Buffett’s name as click bait makes it sound like Buffett is …more

Implementing a media relations campaign in Japan is not an exercise for the squeamish. It requires on-the-ground experience and relationships. In the U.S., PR cold-calls journalists on a daily basis. In comparison, PR in Japan would rarely reach out to a journalist without a proper introduction. I remember years ago working with our Japan …more